CHAPTER X
SAFETY HAVEN
IT RAINED all the long afternoon.
The thunder and lightning died away after half an hour that seemed five times as long, but the steady downpour continued until night merged with the somber darkness of the day. Chalmers lit the lamp in one room while they remained in the other, but no shot came from the schooner.
He prepared an impromptu meal from canned goods that were stored in the inner room.
He found some tins of salmon and sardines but Leila asked him to put them back.
“I shall never see fish again without a shudder,” she said.
Chalmers set them aside, blaming himself for his lack of thought.
“You see I cooked that last meal,” she said. “We had eaten those same fish many times before. Father—” her voice wavered—“was very fond of them but I had grown tired of them. He coaxed me to eat some but I refused, and then”
She broke down and Chalmers sat dumbly awkward. Her head was on her arms as she sobbed and he reached over and put his hand on one of hers. She turned it palm upward and let it lie in his like a child seeking consolation.
“Let me cry,” she said. “It will do me good. I don't mind crying before you.”
Chalmers felt strangely warmed. The little speech showed how she appraised him.
“I am glad,” he said softly, and her fingers closed about his.
Presently she sat up and smiled at him while she wiped her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said. “It helped—lots. You won't think me a baby?”
All the protectiveness in Chalmers mingled with the admiration he had for her beauty and her bravery, a feeling that, had he had time or inclination for analysis, would have amazed him with the vigor of its far-reaching growth.
“A baby!” he exclaimed. “I think you are a—a wonder,” he concluded somewhat lamely.
Leila Denman, being a woman, read the look in his eyes that he himself was unconscious of, even as she supplied the ardent nature of the word he had checked on his lips. She smiled at him again, not wistfully this time, but with the spirit that prompted it so blending with his own that for the moment he forgot time and place, the peril they were in, everything but the girl with her red lips parted, her blue eyes now violet between the long lashes with a light in them that challenged every element of his manhood, her hair beneath the lamp like peacock-copper matrix in the sun.
So, while the rain poured pitilessly down upon the sodden, protesting ground, they talked through the long afternoon—she with tales of her paldom with her father and their life together in the South Seas; he of his work as a newspaperman.
“I have always wanted to get out of it,” said Chalmers. “My first job was in San Francisco on a daily. The city editor was my father's best friend until dad died”
Leila slipped her hand into his in sympathy with the loss that seemed to bring them closer, and the touch sent the blood tingling to his finger-tips and he felt the pull at his heart from the swift flooding of his veins.
“He told me one day I would never make a newspaperman,” he went on frankly. “Said I lacked the instinct and doubted if I would ever get the knack, and congratulated me on it. I didn't see it that way as it was the only thing I could do, but he said he wished he was out of it. Said if he was my age he'd quit it if he had to drive a hack.
“Get out of it son,” he told me. “It's a rotten game. You have to stand by and see your best friend knifed one day, and a man you know is a blackguard, praised to the skies the next. We are like flies in a saucer we think is the world, half muddled, half intoxicated over some stale beer we think is news. Get out beyond the rim of the saucer while you're young and husky. Do things; don't write about what other people do.”
“I think I should have liked him,” said Leila softly, “and then?”
Chalmers gave a wary glance into the veil of driving rain.
“Then,” he laughed, “he offered me the chance of a newspaper job in Honolulu. I couldn't see how that shaped up with his argument, but he said it didn't call for a real, first class metropolitan reporter, but carried a good salary and that Honolulu was close to the rim of the saucer anyhow. So I went. The work was easy and, with the correspondence for mainland papers, the pay was good. I came back in the middle of my vacation to cover the story of a shipwrecked crew”
“Our schooner?”
“Yes.” And Chalmers told the story of Taroi and his partnership with Sayers and Tuan Yuck. “And so,” he said, “that is how I came here.”
“Beyond the rim,” she concluded.
Chalmers looked at his watch. It was seven o'clock.
“It's time to get busy,” he said. “I'm going to offset any interruptions.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Yes, by figuring out what we have to take. All that's most necessary. It's quite a walk and we won't be able to take many trips.”
“But what are you going to do?”
“I'm going to take a little swim out to the schooner and put their ferry system out of commission.”
“You mean you're going to steal their boat?”
“I don't know yet whether I can do that. It depends on conditions. But I'll promise to run no real risk.”
He expected a protest, reluctant as he was himself to leaving her alone while he ran a hazard that he purposely made the least of. But she put an eager hand upon his arm.
“Let me go with you,” she said. “I can swim like a fish. Really. And there's my bathing suit in my tent. Let me, please. I can help, I know, if it's only to keep my eyes open. There's no danger for me. I could swim all the way under water easily.”
But Chalmers was adamant. His plan held dangers that he was not willing to have her share unnecessarily.
“You can be more help doing what I asked you to,” he said.
“Truly?”
“Truly.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” she saluted in mock humility.
Chalmers was seized with a sudden desire to tell her how adorable she was, but there was serious work on hand and he merely registered the picture she made, adding to a gallery in his brain already better stocked with the same subject than he was aware of.
With the fatty part of some canned meat he carefully greased every inch of an automatic and slung it round his neck by a lanyard improvised from twine.
“It's a bit of a handicap,” he said, “but it may come in handy. Now for a knife.”
His own sheath-knife he had left behind when he stripped it with his pistol-holster from the belt before he bound Tuan Yuck. Leila took one down from a shelf and gave it to him.
“It was father's,” she said. “Here's a belt. I wish you'd let me come along.”
“I wish you'd have a list of what we need to take by the time I come back,” he parried, as he greased the blade of the knife and tested its keenness. “I'm going to carry this in my teeth like a pirate,” he said laughing. “Au revoir.”
Leila watched him as the rain and dark enveloped him and turned back into the room with a sigh that was not altogether unhappy. She took counsel with herself concerning the lightening of her grief and, reasoning, blushed; blamed herself for lack of loyalty to her father in forgetting her grief; blamed herself again for lack of loyalty to Chalmers and his sympathy and so, womanwise, set aside the argument by getting things together for the trip to the cliff.
CHALMERS could hardly tell where the beach ended and the lagoon began. The ground was a foot deep with water racing from the hills and augmented by the rain. The latter was slackening perceptibly and he lost no time getting into deep water.
The surface of the lagoon was pitted with tiny spouting fountains beneath the fall of the heavy drops. They beat a tattoo on his head as he swam steadily out in the direction of the unseen schooner, nearly half a mile from shore.
The sky was black and starless. He seemed to be swimming in a black globe half filled with ink. There was no sign of the vessel and he began to wonder whether, in the dark, he was not swimming in a circle, when, close ahead, a dull light broke through the mist.
Paddling cautiously he made out the loom of the schooner, bows to the ebb tide. The whale-boat trailed alongside, its painter fast to the foremast stays, its hull directly beneath the port-hole from which came the light.
It was open. The vertical rain fell past it without entrance. Out of it came an acrid, pungent odor, beaten down toward the water by the rain. Chalmers recognized it as opium. He had already recognized the cabin as Tuan Yuck's. He wondered whether the Chinaman was under the influence of the drug. If he was, and Sayers drunk, he might board the schooner, overawe Hamaku and Tomi. …
“Your methods are too crude Sayers.”
Tuan Yuck was awake and Sayers at least sober enough to be talked to. Chalmers clasped the stern of the whale-boat, drew up his knees, kicked vigorously downward and climbed like a cat into the boat.
“Yours are too slow to suit me,” Sayers was saying as Chalmers crouched quietly down below the open port, straining to hear every word above the patter of the rain. Even as he listened he felt the down pour lessening. There was little time to waste, but the next sentence arrested him.
“You'll find them surer in the end, Sayers.”
The silky tone seemed to hold a menace that the Australian missed or ignored.
“Well my way is going to be your way, tonight,” he answered truculently. “D'ye think I'm going to stand being hammered over the head by that young cub without a comeback. And you, trussed up like a prize turkey for basting! A wise-looking bird you were.” He broke into discordant laughter.
“The rain's slacking up now,” he went on. “Listen to it on the deck. We ran off like a couple of drowning rats. But we're going to finish this affair before I sleep. We'll cut that young gamecock's comb and his throat into the bargain to stop his crowing. I'm not the one to be made a fool of by a half-baked man and a girl. If you're too yellow for the job”
Some gesture or expression of Tuan Yuck's must have halted him, Chalmers fancied.
“Yes my friend, what then?” The Chinaman's voice almost purred.
“No offense, Tuan Yuck. But what's the use of shilly-shallying. There's four of us, ain't there? We can go ashore and settle the whole thing. You can handle the Kanakas. I'm going to sleep with my share of those pearls under my pillow tonight. And Chalmers'll sleep in the sand. There's a million or more in the lagoon, you say. We can clean that up and none the wiser. Dead men tell no tales. You said that yourself. We'll leave the mirrors on the island and it'll be Motutabu to the end of the time. As for the girl”
He broke off again.
“As for the girl?” repeated Tuan Yuck quietly, with peculiar emphasis.
“Why—ha, ha! That's a good one. You don't mean to tell me you—” The sentence ended in the discordant laugh. “I'll tell you what we'll do about the girl,” he said gaspingly. “We'll gamble for her!” But you'll have to roll your sleeves up when you deal the cards. Come on, the rain's quit. Let's turn out the Kanakas.”
CHALMERS glanced at the port-hole above him in the wish that he could reach it and settle the matter with his greased automatic, there and then. But it was impossible. The rain had suddenly dwindled to a scanty sprinkle.
The cloud curtain was rolling up to the north like a great awning and the stars were showing through the frazzle of its rack. He had meant at first to row the boat ashore under cover of the rain and hide it in the mangroves. But with the passing of the storm he would undoubtedly be seen even if the noise of the oars passed notice. And under their fire he would infallibly be killed or desperately wounded before he half-way reached the shore.
He drew out the case-knife and swiftly severed the painter. Then with both hands he tugged at the plug. The bottom boards were already afloat with rainwater and, as the boat slowly drifted sternward with the ebb, the water from the lagoon gushed in. Chalmers slid over the side, tilting the gunwale before he let go and shipping water enough to make the boat commence to settle as it sluggishly followed the current.
He heard Sayers calling for Hamaku and Tomi and blessed the reason that still kept them in the forepeak. The Australian's curses died away as Chalmers filled his lungs and, with a glance to sight the lamp where Leila was working over the preparations for their exodus, swam hard underwater shoreward.
When he came up he turned gently on his back, cautiously paddled till his head was toward the beach, dropped his legs and raised his head ever so slightly, still stroking against the ebb with his arms.
Sayers was on deck swearing at one of the natives who held a lantern aloft. Chalmers chuckled as he thought of the severed line that had been found. Against the white of the reef surf he could distinguish the rim of the whale-boat almost awash. It disappeared as a shout came from Sayers and some one dived from the stern of the schooner.
Chalmers turned on his chest again and once more swam under water, repeating the process until he felt the sand. He had swum to his left and crawled out on the beach close to the rocks at the side of the landing.
Half-way to cover he was discovered by the eyes watching for him. The ping of a bullet on the lava warned him, and he dived into a sand lane between the rocks, safe from the futile shots that followed him.
Bent double, he hurried up the beach, keeping well covered and shouting to Leila to put out the lamp that might be a target for a random shot. It was extinguished and the house was lost against the background of the hills.
Leila was waiting for him at the foot of the steps and he warmed to the anxiety in her voice.
“I was afraid they'd killed you,” she said.
“Not this time, nor the next,” he replied jauntily with a boyish ring to his voice. “But I've sunk their old whale-boat and they'll have a fine time getting it up again. Only I've left my shoes down there and those rocks cut like the devil.”
She murmured her sympathy. Chalmers laughed.
“I can get you a pair of dad's,” she said. “They'll be better than nothing.”
“That's all right, Leila!”
She did not resent the name but caught at his hand as they crouched down by the steps.
“They'll stop firing soon,” he said. “Tuan Yuck won't waste cartridges. He knows we've won this trick.”
“Won't they swim ashore?” she asked.
“Tuan Yuck can't. The main boom caught him one day and he nearly drowned before Hamaku got to him. Sayers always gets cramps. That's one thing we can bless his drinking for. The Kanakas won't tackle it alone. They think we had that storm made to order.”
“It's a wonder they didn't hit you. I was terribly frightened.”
“Were you?” He pressed the hand he still held. “They didn't see me till I landed. I swam under water. The only thing I worried about was a shark.”
“A shark! They never come in the smaller lagoons. Dad said they are afraid of getting trapped by the tide.”
“Don't they?”
There was something in the way Chalmers said it that made the girl look at him in the dim light the stars gave in the clearing.
“Was that the reason you didn't want me to go?” she asked.
“One of 'em,” he answered, feeling rather foolish. “Did you get any things together? We must make a start. We'll keep in the brush and along the edge of the mangroves. Then there are rocks to the point that will cover us.”
AT THREE o'clock Leila Denman collapsed. She had been limping uncomplainingly for the last half hour.
Chalmers, packing double burdens, was almost played out. “There's a lot more I'd have liked to have brought,” he said, “but I doubt if we could make another trip before dawn.”
Leila, lying flat on the sand, her head pillowed on the crook of one arm, gave a weary little sigh. “I can hardly move,” she confessed. We can get along with what we've got, can't we?”
“I think so,” said Chalmers and went prospecting.
“Here's a cave for you with a nice smooth sandy floor,” he said. And another for me right next door. That bedding from the house is dry. I'll fix it for you.”
“Good night, Leila,” he called presently after she had crept wearily into her cliff dwelling.
“There's no danger,” he went on to assure her. “Sleep tight. The lagoon here is too shallow for the schooner. It'll take them all morning to get that boat up, if they're lucky. Tide's coming in and it's all hunky-dory. Everything's safe in our little haven. Let's name it 'Safety Haven.' That's the ticket.”
There was no answer.
“Poor kidlets, she's tuckered out,” he told himself remorsefully. “And I'm wide awake.” Even as he formed the thought he yawned. “Not so wide awake after all,” he concluded. “Good night, Leila,” he said aloud softly.
The repetition of her name roused her.
“Good night,” she said.
“All comfy?”
“Yes, thank you. Good night, Bruce.”
And, with that music to accompany his dreams, Chalmers too fell asleep.